


The Bat to Break the Cycle

by FalconFate



Series: The King's Teachings [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Early Days, MLK speech, MLK's "Loving Your Enemies" sermon, but i've always found it funny how similar bruce's personal morals are to mlk's, if you view them through the lens of vigilantism, like obvi mr king probs wouldn't approve of the whole punchin people thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-13 18:34:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20587127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalconFate/pseuds/FalconFate
Summary: Alfred fears that his young charge may become one of the monsters he fights so viciously.An unexpected hero is found in NPR's radio program.





	The Bat to Break the Cycle

The Batman was created as an agent of vengeance against the darkest horrors the world had to offer. He was born of darkness to fight darkness, to rid Gotham’s streets of the filth and the hate and the fear. The Batman was meant to hunt down every last dreg of evil and every scrap of the foul beasts who prowled the night, the monsters who saw all the good in the world only as something to be torn apart.

The Batman was created to bring judgement down on the city of Gotham, to beat her streets into submission.

Alfred Pennyworth watched as this new monster was created, watched as a young Bruce Wayne disguised his screams of grief by howling for the blood of the cruel and ill-willed, watched his young master—no, his _boy,_ who might as well be his for all that Alfred raised him—teeter dangerously on the edge of becoming one of the men he sought to destroy.

Alfred tried many times to stop that eventuality from running its course, but to no avail. Every argument was met with cold, calculating logic, every plea brushed aside, every admonishment rebutted with all the boy’s hurt. 

By now, Alfred was close to giving up. He would not leave Bruce’s side, of course… but he wondered if he ought to hold a funeral for the boy he had raised, for it seemed as if he would exist no longer once this terrible Batman took his place.

So Alfred prepared himself to mourn, sighing imperceptibly as he watched Bruce disappear, little by little, piece by piece, to be replaced by the hateful shadow of the Bat. He continued about his duties, including the new ones that were a consequence of the new space beneath the manor. The Batman had not yet made an appearance on the street; Bruce wanted to be perfectly prepared, and that included making sure his headquarters, his base, would also be perfectly prepared. 

Alfred quite liked learning the ins and outs of the new computer. How to connect to Bruce any time of the day or night, how to instantly have eyes in every nook and cranny of the city, how to broadcast messages not only across Gotham, but across the whole continent. 

With a little bit of tinkering, Alfred found that he could broadcast something from anywhere within the manor, not just from the computer. It was a useful tool for investigating whether or not Bruce had stayed up all night working away at a minute little detail in the suit, or the belt, or the weapons, or the car—Alfred only had to direct his morning radio into the cave, and lo, a groggy, grumbling Bruce would shuffle into the kitchen to the tune of Flight of the Bumblebee for National Bee Day.

(That had been a fun August. Alfred had proposed keeping bees on the manor grounds, postulated as a cover story for Bruce’s many secluded hours.

Now there was fresh honey in Alfred’s kitchen.)

* * *

One blustery January morning, Alfred set about preparing breakfast with a heart the heaviest it had been since he’d watched a pair of caskets disappear into the earth. It was the dawn of the final day before Bruce embarked on his one-man-army suicide mission of vengeance upon the world. No matter if he died tomorrow, no matter if he died in thirty years, Alfred knew it would be the mission that would kill his young charge.

But before even then, the Bat would kill Bruce Wayne and take his place, and Alfred would bury yet a third master, be it in a pine coffin or an imaginary one. 

Shaking the thought from his mind, Alfred turned on the radio, hoping desperately for something that could at the very least take his mind off the sense of dread that loomed over him. 

The radio crackled to life, and began playing a recording, clearly very old by the quality of sound, of a man with a rich, soulful voice, gilded with the roundness of a light southern accent. _“So I want to turn your attention to this subject: ‘Loving Your Enemies.’”_

Alfred blinked. This was not at all what he had expected.

_“…Many would go so far as to say that it just isn’t possible to move out into the actual practice of this glorious command… the words of this text glitter with a new urgency.”_

Hardly daring to hope for he didn’t even know what, Alfred nearly dropped a plate in his haste to turn the radio’s output to the cave, just in time to hear, _“Yes, it is love that will save our world and our civilization, love even for enemies.”_

Though he continued with his tasks, Alfred listened closely to the sermon, captivated by the priest’s every word. 

_“How do you go about loving your enemies? I think the first thing is this: In order to love you enemies, you must begin by analyzing self…_

_“…so we begin to love our enemies and love those persons that hate us whether in collective life or individual life by looking at ourselves…_

_“…There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Ovid, the Latin poet, ‘I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do,’ …to cry out with Geothe, ‘There is enough stuff in me to make both a gentleman and a rogue…’_

_“…somehow the ‘isness’ of our present nature is out of harmony with the eternal ‘oughtness’ that forever confronts us…_

_“When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who may be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system…_

_“And here you come to the point that you love the individual who does the evil deed, while hating the deed that the person does…_

_“…hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe… The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil…_

_“Somebody got to have some sense on this highway.”_

* * *

When the whole sermon finally concluded, the breakfast on the tray in Alfred’s hands had gone cold and blurry, and Bruce had yet to emerge from the cave. It was an NPR special for Martin Luther King JR day, and Alfred felt silly for not having turned to the great man before.

Alfred could only hope that Bruce had heard it. The young man had spent every night in the cave for the past three months; it would be just Alfred’s luck to have found possibly the answer to every cold, callous question Bruce had raised in response to Alfred’s attempts to dissuade him from his path, only for Bruce to have been asleep in bed, for once.

Tray in hand, Alfred hurried to the grandfather clock and descended into darkness, disheartened by the silence, until—

—there Bruce was, replaying the sermon, shaky fingers hovering over the computer keys, silent tears streaming down his cheeks. 

“Master Bruce? Are you quite alright?” Alfred inquired softly as he came to stand by Bruce’s side.

“The sermon,” Bruce rasped. “All of your protests… I understand now.” His face crumpled with more emotions than Alfred could name—grief and shame were among them. “I’m so sorry, Alfred,” Bruce croaked, choking on a sob. 

_You’re far too young for all of this,_ Alfred thought sadly. He set the tray aside and wrapped Bruce in his arms for a rare, long overdue embrace; Bruce clutched him tightly as he broke down. “It’s alright, son,” Alfred told him, paying no mind to the tears that escaped his own eyes. “You’ve nothing to apologize for. It’s like the good man said; I’ll still stand by your side, no matter the side you choose.”

* * *

Together they listened to the sermon twice more, once in the cave, and once more when Alfred finally coaxed Bruce upstairs for a proper breakfast and shower. 

Soon enough, it was close to noon, and Alfred was just beginning to prepare lunch when Bruce appeared in the kitchen.

“I’m still going to go out there,” said Bruce.

Alfred raised an eyebrow. “You’ll have to elaborate on that,” he said dryly.

“As Batman.”

Of course. Alfred mentally resigned himself to graying where he hadn’t already. He opened his mouth to respond, but Bruce cut him off.

“I’ve changed my mind on what the Batman should be.”

“…you have?” asked Alfred.

Bruce nodded solemnly. “I won’t just be the monster for the monsters. I want to… I want to _help _them. Break the chain. Defeat the system.”

A feeling of immense pride swelled up in Alfred’s chest. “My boy,” he said warmly, “if anyone could, it would be you.”

**Author's Note:**

> MLK's "Loving Your Enemies" sermon, delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, on 17 November 1957. I myself am not religious, but I do think that MLK is a very important source of inspiration for anyone, not just Christians. Reading this one in particular, I was struck by the parallels between King's teachings and Bruce's moral boundaries, not just for his beginning at Batman, but also his relationships with certain other vigilantes. 
> 
> More coming soon, probably! Especially with another part of this particular sermon, but also if I find more inspiration with any of King's other speeches. Stay tuned!


End file.
